Before you can dig in and start planting your garden, you’ll need to give some thought to your garden plans. Planting a garden is about much more than just picking out pretty flowers to grow. It’s also about how you want to landscape, arrange and border your flowers.

It is helpful to draw a sketch of your garden plot and note on it which areas get full sunlight, partial shade and full shade. This will determine which flowers—sun loving or shade loving—you plant where in your garden. Pencil in which flowers will go where based on the sun versus shade areas.

Finally, sketch in any non-flower additions you are planning for your garden, like a birdfeeder, a bench for sitting, a decorative rock path. Now that you have a “vision” of what you want your garden to be, you can head to the garden center and start implementing your gardening plans!